Help with an overweight toddler

[Mushroo]

My 22 month old is overweight and whenever I try and raise it with the GP etc I just get brushed off and told it’s too early to be worried. But, I’m not sure that’s true?

Her BMI is 99th percentile - and she weighs about 12.5kg (about 80th percentile) and height is about 80cm (20th percentile). They might not be the exact right figures but thereabouts.

She just loves food and has eaten large portions since we weaned her at 6months. There’s no juice, chocolate, crisps, cake at all but maybe too many carbs?

Yesterday she had:
Breakfast: a weetabix, small scattering of Rice Krispies (about a teaspoon as she likes them but I don’t think they’re particularly a great breakfast), a tablespoon of full fat Greek yogurt with chia seeds and strawberries.

Nursery: see photo

Dinner at home: roast chicken, potatoes and peas.

I think the problem is she will just eat what she enjoys with no sign of getting full really! So she ate probably 3 or 4 potatoes at dinner which is what I would eat, but as she’s eating her veg and chicken too she genuinely seems that hungry.

I would say she probably has too many carbs, but cutting down carbs for a toddler seems wrong?

Actively level wise she’s at nursery all day, and I encourage her to walk there and back (it’s about a 0.3 mile walk) but she is not naturally a particularly active child and will resist walking.

Any advice? Am I right to be worried about this and cutting portions down?

She is constantly asking for snacks which I try and cut down, but she will often have a babybel after nursery, or some nut butter (she’s a little weirdo who just loves it on a spoon 🤷‍♀️)

The issue is the snacks. Could you provide your own - just carrot and cucumber sticks - and ask the nursery to give her those instead?

dessert twice a day, and a scone for mid afternoon snack, had tea at nursery and then a cooked dinner with 3 or 4 potatoes when she got home?? wow!
I know a lot of kids are hungry after nursery but she shouldn't having a snack and then another cooked dinner. That's far too much.
Also ditch the chia seeds from breakfast, they're not necessary and are adding calories.

hmm it’s tricky - i do think both of mine were chunkier as toddlers and then had big growth spurts, so i tend to think gp is right - that diet looks pretty healthy in terms of content. But perhaps I’d try not having the carb with dinner and replacing with more veg?

Cut down the carbs. The Greek yoghurt is probably not necessary and 1or 2 potatoes should be more than sufficient as she's had a reasonable meal at nursery.

Ah yeah, I agree about the bread/scone snacks too.

Is she having all those snacks in nursery at 5.30 and then having dinner after? Could you ask them to reduce the serving? That seems like such a lot in a short time.

She had beef curry, rainbow wraps and then roast chicken when she got home? I would cut the evening meal when she gets home.

I never gave mine a big dinner if they were given tea at nursery. It would be something smaller like omelette, egg and soldiers. The nursery tea was never enough for it to be the only evening meal, but they didn’t need a full dinner.

Shes having pitta bread, a beef curry for lunch, then veg and scones, then wraps and crumble, then dinner with you.

Could you encourage more activity rather than less food? I’d be reluctant to put a toddler on a diet so would be looking to build healthier habits instead? For example my toddler walks to & from nursery, comes on the dog walk, we do park trips/soft play/walks etc

The snacks are fine, as are the puddings especially as she isn’t even eating it all and I’m guessing at nursery they’re probably low/no sugar recipes. But she is essentially having 2 dinners- nursery tea is a proper meal so that should be her done except maybe a small snack at home so to come home and have roast chicken especially with an adult size portion of potatoes is far too much.

Thanks all, I think the problem is nursery cater for ‘little and often’ on the basis most kids don’t actually eat that much, but she will happily eat everything that’s offered.

We can’t provide our own snacks to nursery for allergy reasons (ironically, she is one of the kids with allergies so I support the policy!).

Evening meal wise I agree she probably doesn’t need it, but we eat before she goes to bed and she definitely wants to eat what we eat, and she enjoys helping with the cooking.

Im glad others agree though we need to tackle it and I’m not going insane. I think I need to lower portions at home, and when she’s no longer at nursery the large amounts of food during the day will naturally drop off…

Neither me or my DH are overweight so it’s new territory tackling this and I want to nip it in the bud.

If you can’t manage to pick her up from nursery before they serve the tea then you and DH need to eat a bit later for the time being and save the family meals for weekends. She really shouldn’t be having 2 dinners every day and that’s the easiest thing to tackle because you can’t really tell nursery she can’t have a snack when the all the other kids are having one.
Or does she go to bed very late which makes that tricky?

Unless I'm reading it wrong OP, your DD is having two breakfasts...one is before nursery...lunch, tea, pudding, dinner and snacks!
What time is she having a large cooked dinner at home if she has tea and pudding at nursery at 5.30pm?

It’s the extra meals that are the issue. I would wait to have evening meal until she is in bed when she is at nursery.

She just loves food and has eaten large portions since we weaned her at 6months
There was no need to give her large portions. Make them smaller.

I know people who are saying their DC ate an adult sized meal age 3 and they are always hungry and now overweight -they eat what they are given, and they are being trained to eat larger and larger portions.

There is no need to give a child that young 3 or 4 potatoes, she isn’t hungry, you need to cut portion sizes right down. Breakfast is pretty big for her age too. Nut butter is also really calorific. It’s good you are recognising she needs to reduce, hopefully doing it so young, it won’t be too difficult. Good luck 🤞🏻

This is what I was thinking, it sounds like a lot of food in one go probably just before bedtime?

My daughter’s nursery do “tea” at 2:45pm so she has that before I pick her up then we walk home from nursery, take the dog for a walk together, she then plays in the garden/house for a bit and we cook & eat dinner at 5:30ish once my husband gets home so she does have two evening meals but there’s 3 hours & lots of activity between them. If she was eating at nursery at 5:30 I would be worrying a bit if she was even hungry again for another meal before bed?

So I think tea at nursery is actually normally about 4:30, the timing is just bit off on the app for yesterday.

We pick her up about 5:30, come home, have dinner at around 6:30 and she’s in bed for about 8pm but doesn’t fall asleep until 8:30 / 9pm.

The bedtime is a whole separate problem as I’d love it to be earlier, but it means we can’t wait to eat until she’s in bed. I’m 5 months pregnant and I just can’t eat that late!

It’s so tricky as I think family dinners together are really important, and we’re so lucky that she will just eat what we’re eating, so I’m a bit loathe to make seperate ‘kids tea’.

I think maybe it’s a case of:
cut yoghurt at breakfast (we’ve already cut from 2 weetabix to one, but we have to give it 2 halves otherwise she will ask for more 🙄)
She still eats with us, but we consciously do lower carb / higher veg meals and a v small portion for her.

She’s possibly not sleeping when she goes to bed because she’s just eaten dinner late. It’s great that she eats with you and will eat what you eat but not so great to be eating a (second) big dinner and then going to bed an hour later. Does she drink milk too?

Nothing concerning, you have a hungry child, I have 3 of them and until 2 and a half ish all were chubby, happy and healthy and suddenly in the last year it's gone, now there all growing and growing and I was actually looking at some pictures from 7months ago to now and there all like string beans, long legs,arms, chubbiness all gone, just there little bodies waiting for the growth spurts I guess. It's nice to see you giving proper meals that's what I do aswell and don't worry just enjoy

Taking aside tea with pudding at 4.30pm and a full cooked dinner at 6.30pm, followed by bed at 8pm, I'm not surprised your daughter isn't falling asleep until 8.30/9pm.
It seems like far too much food so close to bedtime, which certainlyisn'tgood for digestion.

I wouldn't worry too much about eating together every night. You can do that at weekends and you'll have years of it once she's at school. Her bedtime is late for her age, I agree with PP that eating late may be contributing to it.

Also, have you asked nursery how active she is? If she's not naturally an active child she may not be doing as much physical activity as she should.

For contrast, my nearly 5 year old eats the following in a day. He's on the go at school all day, we take him scooting to the park several times a week, long walks at the weekend and swimming. He's non stop moving as well, even at home! He is 99th percentile for height and about 90th for height, is robust but very lean (can see his ribs etc).

Breakfast - bowl of porridge or multi grain hoops full fat milk. Toast at weekends.

Half a naked bar just before school.

Snack - 1 piece of fruit.

Lunch - cheese sandwich, fruit, veggie crisps or skips, treat (something like a Welsh cake)

Afternoon snack- maybe half a brioche with a fruit peeler thing (I get the all fruit ones)

Tea - pasta with homemade ragu and peas. Or something similar.
Yoghurt and fruit for pudding.

Yeah I’d get rid of the yoghurt at breakfast. And smaller portions at dinner, I agree it’s good to all eat together and get them used to lots of different foods. But for a roast for her I’d do not many potatoes, and make it so her plate is leaning more towards veg.
We’ve always eaten together (apart from on days they eat at nursery/after school club, which is now just one day a week so I appreciate we’re in a good position there) and it can be hard to know what portions are right. When you look it up, it’s actually really small!

I would celebrate that she eats so well and a little bit of extra on her at that age will see her through any illnesses and be better for cuddling. She's getting an excellent balanced diet and loves food, which is great.
Mine were massive, off all the scales. I got the obese letters from school and ignored them.
Both vegan, now tall, strong teenagers who have very rarely been ill through childhood.

I used to call our youngest my little sumo wrestler. Age 2 he was almost the same weight as our 4 year old (!) and fairly sturdy until age 4-5 but he has absolutely whittled out now, complete beanpole age 8.
You’re conscious of not over feeding her which is great but I don’t know that I’d be actively reducing from what sounds like a good diet. Perhaps she doesn’t need as much milk as she’s getting now (what’s the milk+ on the nursery photo - did she have more than expected). Full disclosure I can’t remember what 2 year olds should be drinking milk wise but I bet she would be fine cutting out drinking milk and just having milk with cereal and her other sources such as yoghurt / cheese.

‘Better for cuddling’ are you for real? You sound in denial about obesity, sorry.